Part 1. Expression in Merleau-Ponty's aesthetics -- 1. Primordial perception and artistic expression: Merleau-Ponty and Cezanne -- 2. Expression, institution, and the field: a searching itinerary -- 3. Painterly and phenomenological interrogation in "Eye and mind" -- Part 2. Expression in animal life -- 4. The expressivity of animal behavior: embryogenesis and environing worlds -- 5. The expressivity of animal appearance and of directive and instinctual activities -- Part 3. Expression in Merleau-Ponty's ontology -- 6. The role of expression in Merleau-Ponty's dialogue with the rationalists -- 7. The irreducibility of expression: Merleau-Ponty's ontology and its wider implications -- Concluding thoughts.